Concordia women’s soccer team rebounded from their opening loss by beating the UQTR Patriotes on Sunday afternoon. The Stingers scored two second-half goals, four minutes apart, to collect their first three points.
Head coach Jorge Sanchez lined his side up in a 4-4-2 formation. Katrina Filiatrault, Shannon Travers, Elizabeth McDonald and Lindsey Brooks made up the back line. The four midfielders were Melissa Kedro, Valerie Ishak, Kayla Myre and Alexandra Dragan. Jennifer Duff and Gabriela Padvaiskas were paired as the two strikers. Saby Dagenais was the goalkeeper.
UQTR took control early, but only had their first chance in the 19’ minute. Patriotes forward Marie-Michelle Lapointe found herself on a breakaway and ended up rolling her shot at Dagenais.
Six minutes later, UQTR were at it again. Claudia Languedoc almost put the visitors up with her shot inside the box but Concordia center back Shannon Travers did well to block the effort.
The Stingers had their best chance of the half in the 39th minute. After a failed corner kick, the maroon-and-gold recovered the ball and sent in a cross. The ball found Kendro at the far post, but she sent her shot over the bar.
Two minutes later, the Patriotes should have opened the scoring when Lapointe went in on another breakaway. Dagenais was forced to make a terrific stop to keep the score level.
Concordia came out flying after the halftime break. In the 53’ minute, Padvaiskas scored her first goal of the season after receiving an accurate pass from Kendro.
Four minutes later, substitute Shauna Zilversmit made it 2-0. Her powerful shot from the left side of the box found the far side of the goal. Duff picked up an assist on the play.
The two quick goals took any UQTR momentum away; they could not find an answer. Lapointe, the team’s most dangerous player, missed two more chances to reduce the deficit.
The Stingers stayed in command and almost added a third goal in the 84’ minute. Substitute Bella James lobbed a pass to Duff inside the box. Her redirecting shot hit the crossbar and bounced off the line.
The match stayed at 2-0 and ultimately ended that way. The Stingers have now racked up one win and one loss this season.
“What I like about this team is that we kept our head in the game for a lot of the time,” said Sanchez. “We moved the ball around, and for the most part, we stuck to the game plan, kept possession, made them chase us and took advantage of the two good chances we had. That was the difference.”
Concordia’s next match is at home on Friday, Sept. 14 against the McGill Martlets in another edition of the Erica Cadieux Memorial Game. Kickoff is at 8:30 p.m.
